Tag Archives: home made bread

Tuesday 11th August 2026 – FOR A LITTLE …

… while, things seemed to be going better today than they had been yesterday, not that that was ever likely to be difficult.

So having abandoned my notes last night, I was in bed by 22:00 or thereabouts, but it took an absolute age to go off to sleep, despite how tired I was feeling. And once I was finally asleep, it wasn’t for long. I’ve no idea what time I awoke, but the car park light was still on, so it was before 02:30.

Once awake, I lay there in a daze, drifting in and out of sleep from time to time and not being absolutely sure of which was which.

When the alarm went off, I was on my way to pick up an old American schoolbus so that I could start doing my round of delivering alcohol now that Prohibition has ended. But I didn’t get very far into that before the alarm awoke me.

A friend of mine, Rhys, who is a regular reader of this rubbish, actually owns an old school bus that he is slowly converting into a mobile home. And appropriately, his “day job” is driving a school bus for his local education authority in South Carolina, not that Prohibition figures all that much in whatever he does.

At that moment, I was feeling rather wretched, and as usual, it took me a while to summon up the energy to leave the bed and head into the bathroom. And having spent a lot of time sorting myself out in the bathroom, I came back in here to see what else might be on the dictaphone.

Some friends from school and I had decided that we’d go out for a Christmas meal, so someone had booked eight or nine places at this kind-of restaurant place. I remember going there last year for a Christmas meal, and it wasn’t very satisfactory, mainly because the menu wasn’t properly prepared and there were bits here, bits there and bits somewhere else, so I thought that this evening, I’d go to have a look at the menu. One of my friends came in with me, and there was another one waiting by the door for someone else. So we went to look at this menu, and sure enough, the twenty-second of the month, the menu still hadn’t been properly prepared. I was having to try to argue with the staff about whether “this” would be available on Christmas Day or whether “that” would be available and what other options they would have for someone whose diet is pretty restricting. But this restaurant was one of these ones that was always in the dark and gloomy, and it’s very upmarket with a pub bar right in the centre of the room. They are trying their best to run it as a pub and restaurant, but it’s going to be difficult to try to combine the two.

Where this restaurant is situated, I have no idea. It doesn’t ring any kind of bell with me. However, I have been to plenty of pubs and restaurants where hasty recruiting, crammed venues and an excess of clients, followed by a “certain group” of kids from our school who were determined to spike the enjoyment of as many people as possible, led to unsatisfactory Christmas meals.

Isabelle the Nurse zoomed in, and I told her about the confusion yesterday at the dialysis centre. She was frankly appalled by the laxity over the question of my weight. But then again, she’s a former accident and emergency nurse, so the rules about recording medication, etc., are obviously much more strict there.

After she left, I could make my breakfast and read some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Well, once more, I actually didn’t. I was again caught short and ended up reading page after page of research. Not that it brought me much nearer what I was hoping to find, but I hoped that I’d be making progress somehow, somewhere.

Back in here, there were the usual things that needed doing, and they took some time today. And then, when they were out of the way, I could start to make my plans for this radio programme.

One thing that I needed was some music, so I had to search in all the likely and then the unlikely places on the internet until I found it. And that took hours. Not in the least because between about 11:50 and 13:00, I crashed out completely and definitively.

Even worse, ten minutes later, I crashed out again, and my face slammed right into the keyboard and my desk. And how that hurt! But at least the flow of adrenaline that resulted from the crash seemed to awaken me, and I carried on from there.

One thing that I learned was that either yesterday or the day before, not once but twice, my web pages have been used as a reference to answer a question in ChatGPT. I forget now how many times that has happened, but it seems that my tactic of introducing well-known but long-forgotten facts from old books into the internet seems to be paying off.

At 14:00 I had a visitor. Madame la Présidente of the Residents’ Committee came to see me. Apparently she’s put her apartment up for sale and is moving to St Nazaire to be near her family. That’s a shame because she’s actually quite nice and I can’t ever thank her enough for tipping me the wink about this apartment coming up for sale. I was really grateful for her help.

She brought me some pineapple, which was nice of her, and she stayed for about an hour or so while we chatted about her move, life in this building, the new occupiers we’ve had these last few months, etc.

After she left, my faithful cleaner came down to do her stuff. First thing that she did, though, was to chase me into the shower. Showering these days is much easier than it used to be. Once she’s organised the fittings, etc., I can go in and come out of the shower on my own. I’ve managed that now for the last three or four showers.

Interestingly, the other times that I’ve come out of the shower, I’ve had to come out backwards. Today, though, without even thinking about it, I came out forwards and even dried myself standing up, without having to sit on a chair.

After my cleaner left, I went into the kitchen to make two bread rolls and then came back in here to carry on.

At teatime today, I had the other half of my broccoli stalk soup from last week, with those tiny pasta elbows and my two piping hot fresh bread rolls. And as usual, it was absolutely delicious. I really shall have to make some more at some point, although I need to start eating the florets. I seem to have gathered quite a mountain of those over a period of time.

Having been given some pineapple earlier, for pudding I had pineapple with homemade ice cream. And that was what I call ‘really delicious’ too. I’m hoping that it will be just as nice tomorrow evening when I can have a second helping.

After tea, I washed up and then came back in here to do some more work, and then I began to write my notes. I’d done about half an hour, I suppose, and then the next thing that I remember was that it was 22:15. I’d crashed out in my chair yet again.

When I looked at what I had written, it seemed to degenerate towards the end, and I was typing all kinds of nonsense that bore no resemblance to what had gone on. It was full of spelling mistakes and typing errors too. That was when I decided to delete whatever didn’t look right, post the rest online and then clear off to bed.

Falling asleep on the porcelain horse didn’t help much either, so it was quite late when I finally crawled into bed – much later than I’d been hoping. I’ll never catch up on my beauty sleep like this.

One interesting thing, though, was that regular readers of this rubbish will recall a few days ago that I wrote about menthol and eucalyptus. While I was rummaging around in the drawers in the kitchen earlier today, I came across a couple of packets of menthol and eucalyptus sweets that I bought years ago from LIDL.

When I went to bed tonight, I opened a packet and took a couple with me to bed. Once I was in bed, I put one of the sweets in my mouth and sucked it for what seemed like ages. And to my surprise, my coughing immediately subsided. This is something worth knowing and remembering.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about artificial intelligence and ChatGPT … "well, one of us has" – ed … I’ve been confusing my own chatbot again. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … these chatbots have absolutely no sense of humour.
Last night, I asked my chatbot "what’s the difference between Nigel Garbage and Count Binface?"
My chatbot then set out to give me a huge list of differences, supported by evidence and links.
"No" I replied. "one is a comedy figure, a parody of a politician who has turned politics into a comedy show, who isn’t to be taken seriously and shouldn’t be allowed to stand for Parliament."
"And the other?" asked my chatbot.
"Oh, he’s a man disguised as a dustbin."

Sunday 9th August 2026 – THAT WAS WHAT …

… I would call “a good Sunday” – that is, once the early part of it was out of the way, because the early part of the day was nothing at all to write home about.

As I mentioned yesterday. I abandoned my work early and fell asleep at my desk, and for quite a long time too. And when I awoke, I dragged myself into bed, and that was that.

Well, that was that until about 01:25, when I awoke, thanks to another good coughing fit. And despite trying my hardest, I couldn’t go back to sleep. I lay there watching the clock go round and round and coughing all the time while I was doing that too. But as the day slowly started to dawn, I must have fallen asleep again, for I was awoken at about 08:40 by the arrival of Isabelle the Nurse.

She’d brought with her some cuttings of rosemary, thyme and lemon thyme, and while she was doing my legs and feet as I was lying in bed, we talked about the herbs.

After she left, it took me quite a while to leave the bed, and after I’d sorted myself out in the bathroom, it was 09:20 when I found my way into the kitchen.

The first job was to prepare my breakfast – porridge, black coffee and the last two home-made croissants. And while I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Or, rather, I wasn’t. As usual, I found myself running up a side alley to the church at Barnack to look at the tower and steeple, and that led me on and on to several other places too. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … this was why I didn’t receive a very good grade from university – I was being continually side-tracked and spent more time learning the things that were important to me rather than the things that the examiner wanted to know.

Back in here, I had yesterday’s notes to finish off. That took longer than it ought to have done too because I was continually drifting off into that semi-consciousness when all kinds of hallucinations drifted before my eyes. However, they are online now … "the notes, not the hallucinations" – ed … for you to consult at your leisure.

Once the notes were out of the way, I had the dictaphone notes to transcribe.

I was with a former girlfriend last night, and there was something about going to hospital. And when she came back out, I built this big plastic greenhouse out of one of these kits that you buy from a DiY shop. It was absolutely impossible to anchor it to the ground with its plastic outer coating applied, so I tied two wires from front to back and two wires from side to side, and where they intersected, I dropped a row of paving slabs on it from the door to the inside, and the paving slabs held down the wire and stopped the greenhouse blowing away.

This story about my girlfriend in hospital and the plastic greenhouse and the unique method of holding it down reflects a remarkably similar situation that is currently or has recently occurred elsewhere in a different plane of existence than in a dream. However, this is yet another story that the World is not yet ready to hear.

There was something about an Indian, a young man who came round to me for some tuition in something or other, but in fact I ended up giving him some tutoring in English. There were things that he didn’t quite understand, such as “why is it ‘tutoring’ and not ‘tuting’?”. I did my best to explain and gave him a few other examples. He asked me whether it would be possible for him to come again. I thought “well, why not, if he’s keen and interested in learning?” so we agreed that this kind of tuition could continue for a couple more weeks and we’d see where we end up.

This sounds quite similar to one of the guys to whom I taught webpage design in Brussels twenty-odd years ago when all you have to worry about was HTML 5.0 and *.css. And these days, I’m still using them, with a little bit of IFRAME and JavaScript added on for good measure.

I was with a friend of mine, and we were walking around the edge of some city that I knew well. There were several big tower blocks there, so we went for a walk. One thing we found was a small cat trying to jump up to a window to climb into a house, so I went over to try to pick it up and help it, but at that moment, a woman opened the window, so I had a laugh and a joke with her and then moved on. In the shopping arcade underneath these big buildings, there were all kinds of shops that we were looking at, and we picked up one or two things from there. But round another corner was the Woolworth’s shop. I said to my friend “here’s something that I haven’t seen for years,” so he agreed, and we dug our way through the bombardment ruins and found our way into the supermarket. It was really nice and clean and small … fell asleep here … but my friend was talking at one time about us being in a hotel a while ago. It was one of these very posh places, and we’d been on a course of some kind. I’d been interviewed for something or other, so I was late returning to my table. The desserts had been cleared away, so I didn’t bother too much about that. In the end, they announced that they were wanting nominations for someone to be the hospital ambassador, I suppose, for the forthcoming year. But you can’t nominate yourself – you need six people to nominate you, so I decided to let nature take its course at that. I had a black Mk III estate, a 2000E, and I wanted to put that back on the road, so I wanted to do some work on it, but I ended up talking to two guys from the hotel. One of them wanted some documents signed, and the one who was with him, he ended up saying that my music was really great and that if anyone had any problems moving cars and leaving after the conference, they had a mechanic on site They would suspend paying the bill until the problem had been fixed. I mentioned all of this to my friend, and he told me that it was not really as simple as that. He’d had a problem with a motorbike, and what they had done was to push it off a trailer, left it for a while, started it up, told him that it was fixed and charged him €16:00. That made me go to think about if I were to advertise this car mechanics service, just explain that it was for basic things and nothing really major.

This housing estate could have been any one of a dozen housing estates around which I walked in Moscow and Leningrad when I was there with the coaches in the 1980s.

It could also be where I used to live in Brussels, where we did indeed have a little shopping centre on the ground floor of one of the blocks of flats nearby. However, there was no “Woolworths” in that shopping centre, neither in Moscow nor in Leningrad either.

The conference sounds like one of the Open University Students Association conferences, although we weren’t ever likely to be allowed to stay in an upmarket hotel. Not on your Nellie!

Once everything else was out of the way, there was football. I had the match from yesterday to watch, and when I went to restart it, I found that I’d only just about managed to watch half an hour of it, so I settled down for a long session.

There’s no doubt that Colwyn Bay played the prettier, more technical football, but there were plenty of nice touches from the Rhydaman players too. Rhydaman’s players were also the most aggressive, and although I’d left the match on Saturday with Colwyn Bay 2-0 up, by the time the game was over, it was 2-2 and some of the Colwyn Bay players were quite close to losing their cool.

Later on, there was a baking session. And something that I have learnt today is that my fruit bread doesn’t keep for much longer than a week. When I went to look at it today, at two weeks old, it looked as if it needed a shave, so it went the way of the west.

That meant as well as a loaf, I also had to bake more fruit bread. The two loaves that I ended up making look wonderful, both risen up like lifts. But what I’m going to have to do with the fruit bread is the same as with the ordinary loaf, and that is to cut it in half and stick one half in the freezer to pull out when the first half is eaten.

There’s no tea again tonight. I’m off to bed as soon as I’ve written these notes, backed up the computer, etc.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about herbs … "well, one of us has" – ed … I once lived in the same building as a girl who was studying for a degree in cookery.
One night she told me that her best friend had been expelled after failing her exams
"How come she failed?" I asked her.
"She had to cook a dish of fish cooked with herbs, but the examiner didn’t like it."
"Why not?"
"The examiner told her that this was neither the thyme nor the plaice for this kind of thing."

Wednesday 5th August 2026 – IT HASN’T BEEN …

… as good a day today as it was yesterday, unfortunately. Mind you, it’s been a better day than many a day that I’ve had just recently, not that that’s particularly difficult, all things considered.

Last night wasn’t any better, though. It was once more after midnight when I finished letting it all hang out and went to bed, looking forward to a nice long sleep.

Or so I thought, but 02:20 wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. But there I was, wide awake. However, from then on, it was me drifting slowly in and out of sleep, not knowing which was sleeping and which was waking. But I was definitely asleep when the alarm went off at 06:29, because I couldn’t remember where I’d put my telephone so that I can switch it off … "it’s on the bedside table in the alcove behind the head of the bed" – ed …

Once I’d remembered where the alarm was, I switched it off, and then we had the usual struggle for me to rise to my feet and go to sort myself out in the bathroom. It’s becoming ridiculous these days, the time it takes me to stand up.

Back in here after a good wash, the first thing was to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

I was back in Wales last night, and I’d signed up for the local football club to go training with them to keep fit. On the first night, I’d brought with me my cousin, who plays for Gresford Athletic in the Second Division. So we were doing this keep-fitting together. One day he happened to mention that he was now without a club, and would this team be likely to want to sign him? They gave him a couple of provisional matches, and I could see from what he was doing that he was probably several divisions above the kind of players who were playing for our club. I replied, therefore, that I’m sure that they would, but they kept on dragging their heels about it and I couldn’t understand why, and I didn’t think that it was particularly clear to this lad who was hoping to have this trial … fell asleep here … I’ve just dropped the dictaphone … so I had a bit of a complain to the people in charge, and they began to make a little more use of him in the football team, but the dream ended suddenly because round about 02:20, I had another one of these dreams, dreaming about the bedroom window being left open all night, and so, as I say, there was this sudden alarm going off that awoke me, except that the alarm didn’t.

The main theme to this dream does make some sense to me. A player who had played in the Premiership and Championship of the English pyramid but who had been sacked due to “issues unrelated to the football field” had been signed by a club in tier two of the Welsh pyramid. He was obviously in a class well above that at which he was playing, but it all ended pear-shaped when he left the field one day in a Black Maria. A player of the same name has just signed for a tier two side, and the club is refusing to tell me if it’s the same player.

The bedroom window was open all night, by the way, but the waking up with the alarm is also something that is happening everywhere these days, and I’m hoping that I’ll manage to avoid having a head-on collision at sea. But whatever made me add that in, I don’t know.

Falling asleep and dropping the dictaphone was a short route to a tragedy, and I wish that I knew how it ended. However, I’m glad that I slipped back into that dream later, even though I didn’t go very far.

Isabelle the Nurse came round as usual. As she was dealing with my feet and legs, she told me to take it easy today. Very little chance of that, I’m afraid. I have plenty to do.

Such as to make my breakfast, as I began to do as soon as she had left. And while I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Once again, as he expounds away at his favourite Gothic period, explaining in minute detail the difference between Early Gothic, Fantasy Gothic and all of that, he’s managing to avoid real controversy. However, I don’t imagine that it will be too long before some creeps in somewhere.

Back in here afterwards, there were a few things to clear up and then I began to work on the notes for the next radio programme – a concert. And that wasn’t as easy as it was supposed to be. I had plenty of information about the group – they are one of my favourites, and they have been around and about on my radio broadcasts since the beginning. However, the venue is pretty much unknown so we were even poring over old maps to find some information.

Eventually, though, I managed to write enough, and so that programme is ready for dictating.

While I was at it, I came across another concert that had taken place a few weeks later at the same venue. I discovered a sound track for it in the big box of cassettes that I have, and although there are a few holes in it, I reckon that I can patch it up enough.

It’ll need some re-editing and some remixing too before it’s fit to be broadcast, but I have about three years to deal with that before the date of its broadcast falls on a Friday.

We had the usual interruptions, such as the break for the disgusting break and the midday medication, and I also crashed out for an hour or so too, which is no surprise given the night that I had had.

When everything was finished, round about 16:30, I went into the kitchen. Included in the order from Leclerc the other day was a broccoli, but so far, I’d done nothing with it. So I took off the flowering heads and blanched them while I diced up the stalks into tiny cubes.

The flowering heads were drained and the water was kept, and then I chopped a potato, a shallot and an onion into tiny cubes. The onions and shallots went into the saucepan first, and I fried them with some olive oil. And then the potatoes, and then the broccoli stalk cubes.

When I was satisfied that it was all mixed together, I poured the broccoli floret water onto the veg mix, added some coriander and a stock cube, and left it to simmer. And while it was simmering, I made the dough for two bread rolls.

Eventually, the veg was ready, so with the whizzer, I whizzed it all up, tipping a pot of plain soya yoghurt into the mix as I did so.

It made just about 1 litre of soup, so I sterilised an 800 gram jar in the microwave and put half a pint in it. That’s now in the fridge for another time.

When it was teatime, I had the other half-litre of broccoli stalk soup with those tiny pasta elbows and my two bread rolls. And it was delicious too, especially when followed by two slices of my home-made fruit bread for pudding.

Now back in here, I’m trying to type out my notes, but I keep on falling asleep. And while some of the notes that I’m typing make perfect sense, they bear no resemblance at all to anything that actually happened, so what’s going on?

In the end, I gave it up as a bad job, and I’ll continue with it tomorrow morning when, hopefully, I’ll be feeling much better and much less tired.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about football … "well, one of us has" – ed … a Catholic, a Québecker and a Mormon were at a football match when suddenly, the Catholic announces "Do you know, with one more child I’d have my own football team!"
"That’s nothing!" retorted the Québecker. "With one more child I’d have my own rugby team"
"That’s nothing!" said the Mormon. "I have seventeen wives, and with one more wife, I’d have my own golf course."

Sunday 26th July 2026 – TODAY, I HAVE HAD …

… another one of the laziest days that I have ever had, and about time too. I should put my feet up and relax more often, I reckon.

But it wasn’t always going to be like that. I was in bed last night by about 23:15 or so and was asleep quite quickly too. That was despite the howling gale that sprung up during the night

However, I didn’t stay asleep for long. Round about 03:30, I had another one of these dramatic awakenings. This is what I found on the dictaphone later.

Someone shouted out Mae’r papurau’n anghywir – “the papers are incorrect” – and something about me being enwog, which means “famous”. I sat bolt upright at that and I’ve no idea at all what they meant by it.

Whatever was going on there, I have no idea. But it was dramatic enough to give me another one of these strange awakenings.

After that, I couldn’t go back to sleep and round about 06:50, I got up and went to the bathroom. Back in here, I listened to the dictaphone but that dream above was all. Outside, the wind had died down but it was damp as if it had rained through the night. That will make the local farmers happy.

With nothing else to transcribe on the dictaphone, I set about doing other things until Isabelle the Nurse came. She was surprised to find me out of bed, so I explained about my sleeping issues. She didn’t say much, just told me about her two weeks off and how she’d had to go to the doctor for her sinuses, and after she’d finished my legs and feet, she cleared off on the rest of her rounds.

Once she’d gone, I could make breakfast. Porridge, strong black coffee, juice and two of the home-made croissants that I made last weekend. And while I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

In discussing Amr ibn al-As, conqueror of Egypt, and the mosque that he built in celebration, he says "he did not, like Constantine at Rome, or Mahomet at Constantinople, employ an existing building for his new use, and so impress an existing type upon future structures, but erected a new one from the ground in such a manner as might be expected from a horde of invaders animated by the fanatical spirit of their new religion of lust and bloodshed, under a chief whose name is mainly remembered as the destroyer of the noblest library the world had hitherto beheld"

Leaving aside the question of the Inquisition, the Albigensian Crusade, and the Conquistadores in Central and South America for the moment, the Great Library at Alexandria was first burnt by Julius Caesar in 48 BC and secondly, in 272 AD, by the emperor Aurelian. The story of Amr burning the library in 642 AD was not recorded until over five hundred years later, and many scholars, long before Charles Freeman began writing his book, have questioned its authenticity.

Back in here afterwards, I had the notes from yesterday to type, and that took much longer than it ought, mainly due to the number of times I fell asleep while doing it.

And then we had the football. First off was Stranraer v Falkirk. Stranraer are, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, in the fourth tier and Falkirk are in the first. We weren’t expecting too much and the result, a 3-0 victory to the Bairns, was not unexpected.

However, at times Stranraer slugged it out toe-to-toe, and it was difficult to tell who was the tier-one team. Stranraer can feel quite comfortable with themselves after this.

On the other hand, Greenock Morton put up the usual sad, dismal performance against Inverness, going down 1-0 at home. They’ve lost all four games and failed to score a single goal. And on the evidence of what I’ve seen so far, they could be playing until next weekend, out on the pitch all alone, and they still wouldn’t manage to score a goal.

After a disgusting drink, I had a few more things to do, and they took an age to finish, mainly because I kept on crashing out while I was trying to do them. I must have fallen asleep at least three times, sometimes for as long as an hour. I really don’t know what’s happening to me right now.

And then it was baking time. So refuelled by one of these energy drinks, I tackled the question of home-made bread and home-made fruit bread. It took up most of the late afternoon and early evening, but even so, they turned out very well indeed and I can’t wait to get my teeth into them. They look absolutely delicious.

So right now, I’m going to check the statistics, back up the computer and so on and then go to bed. I have dialysis tomorrow and I wonder what’s going to happen there.
I have a bad feeling about it all.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Greenock Morton’s dismal performances … "well, one of us has" – ed … a reporter from BBC Scotland Sport rang up manager Ian Murray and asked him how he was going to deal with the issues.
"They’ll be coming in for training on Sunday" replied Murray. "I have a load of traffic cones and the players are going to practise dribbling around them all day"
So on Sunday afternoon, the reporter rang back to ask how things were going.
"Dreadful" replied Murray. "At the moment, the cones are leading three-nil"

Sunday 19th July 2026 – WHEN I AWOKE …

… this morning, there was bright sunlight outside and the birds were singing, including a dove that lives somewhere around here. So I checked the time – 06:29 exactly. So there’s nothing wrong with my body clock, is there?

Mind you, it wasn’t the first time that I’d awoken. I’d been awake on several occasions previously, usually when it was pitch-black, but I couldn’t be bothered to check the time at those moments.

Anyway, by 07:07 I was sitting at my desk working, having had time to organise myself in the bathroom first.

First job was to reply to a couple of messages that I’d received during the night, and then I could make a start on yesterday’s notes that had been abandoned before they had even begun.

For a change, I actually put my back into it and the notes were almost complete when the nurse came in. He was surprised to find me up and about … "and so were you" – ed … but I explained about the dreadful night that I’d had.

While he was dealing with my feet, he was complaining about the dreadful showing of the French team in the first half against England last night. He reckoned that the players out there, particularly in the first half, had absolutely no interest in playing and it was embarrassing to watch.

On leaving, he told me to take it easy, something that I had every intention of doing. First, though, was to make my breakfast. Porridge, coffee and the last of the two home-made croissants. I must make some more soon.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Well, actually, I wasn’t. He ended up talking about the Papal residency in Avignon, and although Nerina and I visited Avignon in 1991 and danced upon the bridge, I can’t remember much about it, and all my old 35mm photos are down on the farm. Consequently, I spent much of the morning reading about the time the Popes lived in Avignon and looking at pictures of the mediaeval magnificence.

Back in here, I finished off the blog entry for yesterday and it’s now on line. That was followed by listening to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

At something like about 04:40, someone came into the bedroom shouting “Ian Henstone! Ian Henstone!” who I couldn’t see what on earth he was looking at but the vet saw me and said “as you are here and all these … fell asleep here …

As for Ian Henstone, whoever he is when he’s at home … "if he ever is" – ed … I have no idea, but I do know of a Henstone Distillery.

And I’m not surprised that this degenerated into a load of the usual drivel … "you said it" – ed … with me falling asleep in the end.

Nerina and I were talking to some old woman about some cream that Nerina needed for something. It had to be a very special type that was not normally available. This woman said that she knew where she could obtain it so we asked her whether she would mind. She replied that it wouldn’t be a problem at all. A couple of days later, we went back to see how she was getting on but she said that she hadn’t received it yet. Just at that moment, a policeman appeared. He asked this woman for her name, which she gave him. He asked her if she had tried to obtain some cream made of some part of a duck or something from a herbalist somewhere, to which she replied that she had. The policeman replied that it’s not allowed for sale any more and formally charged her with a crime. Both Nerina and this lady pleaded their cases but the copper was adamant. At that point, I had something to do so I had to wander off, but I said to Nerina that when I come back, I’d love to see that charge that he’s given her. She asked why, and I replied that I bet it’s set down as “receiving” instead of “attempting to receive”. I went to do what I had to do, and then coming back down Victoria Street in Crewe, there was an old furniture sales place that had been empty for years but now had a big “Tesco” sticker stuck on the window, and there were people inside clearing up the inside. It looks as if we’re having another one of these local Tescos here. I went back to where Nerina and this old woman were. Nerina showed me the charge, and it was written down as “attempting”, but “attempt” had been written incorrectly. I thought “well, there’s a loophole here that I can exploit,” so I was quite looking forward to representing this woman in Court.

There’s a lot going on in this dream too. There’s more than enough to render the summons invalid. I’d love to prove that in Court.

And then the Tesco’s in the old furniture shop – that would be interesting too and help liven up the town centre, not that it would ever happen. But the need for special cream is something of more relevance to Laurence rather than to Nerina.

After that, there was football. There had been several matches in the Scottish League Cup yesterday, so I searched for the highlights of the St Johnstone v Greenock Morton game. And I rather wish that I hadn’t because, once again, Morton were awful and the 3-0 defeat rather flattered them. In my opinion, they were lucky to get 0.

When the match had finished, I did some reading before going for a disgusting drink break. And then I was working on another project for a few hours, just to keep myself busy.

By then the highlights of the match between Stranraer and Alloa Athletic had been posted on line. And Stranraer did really well, drawing 2-2 away to higher-level opposition.

Later on, it was time to go a-baking. And today, I made some bread. I wanted to try something different instead of the usual sunflower seeds, so I ground up a large handful of almonds and added them in. We’ll see how they react to the bread.

While the bread was baking, I assembled another half-dozen home-made croissants. And when the bread was baked, they went into the oven and now they are ready for starting next weekend.

And I think that I’ve fixed the problem relating to the drawers in the kitchen. I had another one collapse on me this evening, and while I was repairing it, I finally managed to understand why they kept falling apart. This time, therefore, I fixed it properly and little by little, I’ll go round and do the rest.

So having written my notes and generally done what needs doing, I’m off to bed, hoping for a good night’s sleep before dialysis … "and not before time too" – ed …

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about distilleries … "well, one of us has" – ed … I had a friend once who drowned in a vat of whisky in a distillery.
"That must have been a quick end" said my friend.
"Not at all" I replied. "He got out three times for a bite to eat."

Sunday 12th July 2026 – SUNDAY IS A …

… Day Of Rest, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. A day when I don’t do anything at all and spend much of my time in bed, even down to having the nurses deal with my legs and feet as I slumber on.

So consequently, last night, totally and utterly exhausted and having abandoned my blog notes for now, I went to bed at about 22:00 with an air of profound optimism, didn’t I?

And although it took a minute or two to go off to sleep, I ended up being well away with the fairies, although not in any manner that would excite comment from the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine. And there I stayed until all of … errr … 00:10.

That was when I awoke, and from then on for several hours, I was drifting in and out of sleep. And as seems to be the case these days, it was difficult to tell what period was which. Round about 06:00, I was definitely awake and there seemed to be no hope whatever of going back to sleep, so at 06:15 I was actually up and about.

After I’d sorted myself out in the bathroom, the first task was to listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night.

I was back in the Auvergne last night again and was standing for election to the town council. In the borough, in the part of the area where I lived, there was no opposition so I was “walked over” into the Houses of Parliament. And it was bricking really good as well and it looked quite an impressive thing to see, and I hoped that my descendants, or whoever completes the job, will have the same kind of senses to the colours … fell asleep here …

So this is the usual kind of incoherent nonsense … "you said it" – ed … that doesn’t make any sense at all and is totally meaningless. So much so that I can’t even remember dictating it. And it’s surely no surprise to anyone that I fell asleep in the middle of it all.

When Isabelle the Nurse turned up, she was amazed to find that I was out of bed and working. My reaction was that I was rather disappointed. I had hoped to have had a really decent sleep for once.

Anyway, after she finished with me, she wandered off on the rest of her rounds, still on foot. Everywhere was total chaos today with roads being closed up here for the brocante and down in the town too for the shopping morning.

Meanwhile, I was preparing my breakfast – porridge, coffee and home-made croissants – and while I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

He’s still going on with his anti-Roman tirade at first, but slowly, he’s gradually warming to some examples of Roman architecture. And the difference? "But it was not the old Rome of Pontiffs and Augurs, of Consuls and Emperors, that was to mould the arts of Teutonic Christendom. Before she could influence the race on whom the spirit of the Church was to take the firmest hold, she had herself to bend before the Cross. The greatness of Rome is indeed exclusively heathen …. its Christianity was but the precursor of its fall. It endured but to pass the torch of truth to a race springing into life with all the fervency of youthful vigour, whose greatness might be cradled in the lap of the Church, and during its historic being have known no other faith. This was the work of Christian Rome, to lay the foundation among another people of a truly Christian commonwealth; ;"

Back in here, I had a few things to do and to organise, but would you believe that I crashed out? It was 11:00 when I awoke so I reckoned that I’d been out for forty-five minutes, and I didn’t feel a thing.

Once I’d gathered up my wits, I continued with the notes for the blog, and they are now on line at long last. That meant that I could have a pause for a disgusting drink and the midday medication.

When I was back and ready, I carried on with the radio notes for the next programme, and it’s almost finished now. I just have to find a way of losing five seconds, but that shouldn’t be difficult.

There was time for a footfest afterwards. The first match was Stranraer, of the fourth tier, against Ayr United of the second. And Stranraer gave Ayr a good run for their money, twice taking the lead, but eventually going down 3-2. That was followed by Greenock Morton of the second tier v non-league Linlithgow Rose.

As for that game, I couldn’t believe what I was watching, and I ended up having to watch the streams from both clubs to make sense of it. I’ve seen Morton play some bad matches in the past, but never as bad as this. Morton lost the game 1-0 and they were lucky to get nil. Linlithgow hit the post with the keeper beaten three times during the game.

What I noticed particularly was how easily the Morton players were muscled off the ball. If a non-league side can do this to Morton, heaven help Morton when the league gets under way.

Later on, it was baking time, and as well as producing another nice home-made loaf, I made a fruit bread too, and that looks pretty good. However, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so I’ll tell you in due course how they turn out.

Doing all that baking wore me out so I was glad to have a sit-down afterwards. And there was another bottle of alcohol-free beer in the fridge. That didn’t last long either.

Anyway, now that my notes are written, I’m off to bed. It’s dialysis tomorrow of course, and I don’t feel at all like going. But there’s nothing new there.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about bread … "well, one of us has" – ed … in Russia, a peasant went to the bakers to buy some bread.
"I’m sorry" said the baker "but I’ve run out."
"What a stupid country this is!" exclaimed the peasant. "And that stupid Vladimir Putin. He’s the worst of the lot. This is all his fault."
Just then a Russian soldier who had been listening came over, brandishing his rifle. "You want to watch yourself" he said to the peasant. "I would be perfectly justified in shooting you, so you clear off home and watch your mouth."
When he returned home, his wife noticed his empty hands. "Have they run out of bread again?" she asked
"They have indeed" he answered. "And I’ll tell you something else for nothing too."
"What’s that?"
"I reckon that they’ve run out of bullets too."

Sunday 5th July 2026 – WHEN I AWOKE …

… this time, it was 22:25 exactly, and I was feeling almost as bad as I was yesterday. And just like yesterday, the only thing to do when I feel like this is to go to bed. And so, just as yesterday, I hauled myself over to the bed, fully clothed, and that was that. The only difference was that this time, I remembered to close the shutters.

It seems to me that I was definitely asleep even before my head touched the pillow, and there I lay until all of … errr … something like 03:00. Really, I’ve no idea of the exact time but it was after 02:30 because the streetlight on the car park had gone out.

From there, it was another night of drifting in and out of sleep, and which bit was which, I couldn’t really say. There were times when I felt like getting up and times when I was dead to the World.

The whole lot came to a shuddering halt, though, when Isabelle the Nurse arrived and she definitely awoke me. She sorted out my legs and feet and then went off on her travels.

By now, I was wide awake, but I still vegetated in bed for quite a while. Eventually, I went into the kitchen, where the time was showing as 09:28.

The first thing that I did was to bake the croissants. I switched on the oven and while it was warming up, I brushed the croissants with milk. When the oven was ready and warm, I stuck the baking tray with the croissants inside and set the timer to sixteen minutes.

While they were baking, I made my breakfast – porridge, hot black coffee and lovely grapefruit juice to wash down my medication.

When the croissants were done, I stuck two of them on a plate and sat down to eat my food.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE by Charles Freeman.

Again, he managed to steer clear of controversy, but he’s now beginning to appreciate the Egyptian art that he denied existed at the very beginning. And so we have "And if any forms which might arise in such structures, any groupings of natural objects, or shapes given to artificial ones, appeared to the artist to be adapted for his purpose, they would be as unhesitatingly transferred to the excavated rock as flowers, fruit, and leaves, or representations of human and animal life."

Back in here, I began work on finishing off the notes from yesterday when I fell asleep, and now they are online, ready for your perusal.

After that, we had football, Greenock Morton v Stranraer in a friendly. And you could tell that this was Morton’s first game because they looked slow and lethargic. And as they tired, Stranraer came more and more into the game and gave them a few frights. Although Stranraer are two divisions lower than Morton, they looked much sharper. After all, this is their fourth friendly so far.

The final score was 0-0 and Stranraer definitely earned it.

Next was the dictaphone, and I was absolutely astonished by how far I’d travelled during the night.

I decided that I would go on a one-man campaign against the ridiculous amounts of overspending in Parliament, so I had to think of a way in which I was going to do this. By some kind of happy coincidence, the door into the Prime Minister’s office was open, so I just walked in to where he was sitting and told him about these stupid expenses that I’d discovered. I took his newspaper away from him to highlight some of the major problems. Anyway, I walked off with the newspaper and began to make a list from inside about what I could read of it that affected what I’m doing. When I’d finished, I went back into the office and down past all of the people to where he was sitting and took his next newspaper from him. This time, I stayed there and pointed out all of these expenses in this. We found maybe a dozen pages about the household pets in Buckingham Palace. He was horrified when he saw that one of the cats was actually receiving in food and treatment and all that kind of thing – more money than he was earning. I thought that this might shake him into doing something, but instead, he took the newspaper back and had me thrown out of his office.

This dream doesn’t seem to relate to anything that’s been going on anywhere, especially when I recognised the prime minister as David Cameron. I do, however, have to say that if ever I were in a position in Buckingham Palace, the first thing that I would do is to have some auditors in and let them go through the entire Royal Household accounts to trim out as much unnecessary spending as would be possible. Even without investigating and just looking at news articles, I can identify millions of Pounds of wasted money.

There was also something about me coming out of Wistaston Road, crossing over Edleston Road there at the traffic lights by Oak Street. There were a couple of other people there, young boys, who were teasing each other about the places where they worked.

This crossing is one that I know intimately, having crossed over here on numerous occasions. And with several of the offices that used to be down there in the good old days, I can understand why people would be teasing each other about their work.

My brother was trying to run a disco or something and wanted to know where he could get some loudspeakers from. He’d been looking through the newspaper, the Evening Sentinel, but couldn’t find anything. He didn’t think that there was anyone in the area. I told him about a company called “BOSS” that had an office in Hanley and sold hi-fi equipment, speakers and all that kind of thing, so off he went. He came back a little later with someone from the company, whom he showed around and downstairs and upstairs in his bedroom. Eventually, the guy from there sold him something, which we thought was rather crazy but my brother was determined on having them

BOSS is an American company so they aren’t likely to have a branch in Hanley, and opinions on their products are very varied. One thing is for sure, though, and that is that my brother could never afford anything that they are likely to sell.

Somewhere in this dream … "which dream?" – ed … was something about one of my garages and all the mess that was in it and the car spare parts, old cars and everything all over the place. It really did look a mess. I thought that one day, I’m going to have to get down and tidy this, or leave it for my heirs to sort out

This is another recurring dream – the old cars and spare parts stashed in lock-up garages. It used to be true, too, back in the old days before I came to live abroad. Not so much now, although my barn down on the farm could do with a good going-over one of these days.

We were staying somewhere in the country, in one of these big country houses where there was some kind of weekend organised. We were there on the Saturday night when two masked men burst in and held us all at gunpoint while they took all of the jewellery and valuables and everything like that. They put them into two sacks, one of which was a red sack. As they were leaving, my brother and I leaped out of the window outside and confronted the robbers. We managed to overpower one and put him on the ground. He was the one carrying the red sack but the other one got away.

The chances of my brother and I actively co-ordinating a joint plan would be about zero. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we don’t actually get on very well with each other and haven’t done for about thirty years, if not more.

Later on, Nerina and I were wandering around North London somewhere. We were on our way to the bank or the post office and had gone past the local cemetery and looked inside, which was magnificent. Then I suddenly remembered about these attackers. There was one person in our crowd who was one of these public school-types and I didn’t like him at all, so I said to Nerina that we ought to go round and have a chat with him to see what he could tell us. She said that he was ill and couldn’t be disturbed. I said “I bet you £500 that he’s the guy – the other guy for whom we’re looking”. We walked around on our way to the post office and came across this big place called “The Soho Curry Hut” with queues outside, so we went to have a look. It was selling a meal of curry for £2:50, a ladle of rice for £2:50, that kind of thing. I thought that this would be a lovely place to come for a meal one night, so we went to have a close look at it and a close look at the menu.

The cemetery reminded me of the big one in Montmartre, the Cimetière de Montmartre when Nerina and I were there very early one morning, looking around before the morning rush hour began. But the curry house sounds really interesting. I could do with a really good curry right now, I must admit.

As for the public school guy, and I can still see his house, a tidy cottage in the countryside, just like something out of an AGATHA CHRISTIE FILM. I’ve no idea why I fingered him as a likely suspect, but it would all seem to fit.

And how many times is that just recently that I’ve been in North London during the night?

Incidentally, throughout these pages, you’ll see links to Amazon products appearing every now and again. Being a sales associate of Amazon, I receive a small commission on goods sold via my links. It costs you nothing at all extra, but helps defray … "part of the" – ed … cost of my not-insubstantial web hosting fees.

There are also links on the sidebar for AMAZON UK, AMAZON USA and, since the recent “troubles”, AMAZON CANADA for the use of my numerous Canadian visitors. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I am extremely grateful when someone uses them to make a purchase

Later on, I knocked off to go and make some bread. I was reminded of a chat that I had a few years ago with a friend about the crusts of bread on a loaf, and I had a little theory, so I decided to try it. Instead of going with 190°C for five minutes and then 180°C for thirty minutes, I went with 200°C for eight minutes and 180°C for thirty-five minutes. And sure enough, there’s a lovely thick dark crust on the finished product.

Back in here, I had a few things to do, but the next thing that I remembered was that it was 20:41. I’d crashed right out without even realising it. It’s a good job that I don’t drive any more, isn’t it?

So now that I’ve finished my notes, I’ll just do the stats and backing up and then go to bed, ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed …

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about bread … "well, one of us has" – ed … the local priest was out and about having a walk when he met a parishioner coming towards him, carrying a baguette in one hand. His other hand was slouched lazily in his pocket.
"Ahh" exclaimed the priest. "Here you are, coming towards me on this nice Sunday morning, with the staff of life in your hand."
"Well, yes, Father. "
"And pray, what is it that you have in your other hand?"
"A baguette, Father."

Sunday 24th May 2026 – AS I HAVE …

… said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … “What a way to start the day!”

It wasn’t café au lait – “coffee with milk” – but café au lit – “coffee in bed”, and how much did I enjoy that? In fact, the nurse caught me in flagrante delicto in bed with a mug of coffee in my hand when he arrived.

That was a good start to the day, much better than the end of the previous one. As seems to be the case these days, it took an age to finish off everything that I needed to do, and then, on coming out of the bathroom, my friend asked me “have you remembered to take your night-time medication?”.

Ten minutes later, I finally made it into bed. It was actually a few minutes after midnight. And then, a strange thing happened.

I’d only been in bed thirty seconds when I began to dream. It was about a marriage bureau and there was something about your tax return or paying your tax or something and you could go to this marriage bureau. Some guy went there but he was only half-heartedly interested and they could tell that there, so one of the women told him that he was going to miss out on a couple of great opportunities. So while I was there, I thought to myself that probably I’m going to as well because I’m not all that interested in having a partner either.

In actual fact, looking at the timestamp on the recording, it was about fifteen minutes after I went to bed that all of this happened.

Firstly, the dream reminds me that I have my tax return to do, but secondly, even if they were to offer me a free encounter at a marriage bureau, I’d turn it down. I’m too old, I’m too set in my ways, I have all my own habits and so on, and having a woman around the place would just disrupt me far too much. I’m much happier on my own.

Having fallen asleep quite quickly for once, I stayed asleep until about 07:00, after which I was falling asleep and waking up on a regular basis every few minutes. When my friend brought in the coffee, I was asleep but I awoke as soon as the bedroom door opened.

And five minutes later, the nurse arrived. When he rang the doorbell to announce his arrival, the Hound of the Baskervilles let out a short yelp as if he had been taken by surprise, and then he didn’t react at all once the nurse had come into the apartment.

After he left, I dressed and went into the kitchen to make my breakfast.

While I was eating, I read some more of Charles Roach Smith’s THE ANTIQUITIES OF RICHBOROUGH, RECULVER, AND LYMNE, IN KENT.

We’ve finally finished our visit to Richborough, or Rutupiae, as the Romans knew it, and so I thought that I’d post a photograph that I took of the place when I visited it in July 2006 before we leave.

You can see just how impressive the Roman walls actually were, so what must they have been like when they were erected nearly two thousand years ago?

And much closer to us, you can see part of the Roman defensive trench and how it was lined with rocks to stop the sides sliding back down into the bottom of the trench. These Roman forts were really well built and intended to last forever.

And so now, we are going to visit Reculver, or Regulbium, as the Romans knew it.

Back in those days, the Isle of Thanet really was an island as the River Wantsum cut it off from the sea before it all silted up. But just as Rutupiae guarded the southern entrance to the river, near Sandwich, Regulbium guarded the northern entrance.

In this photo, which I also took in July 2006, you can see the two mediaeval western towers of the old church that was there and some Roman remains to the right. And once more, you can see some Roman stonework below the remains, presumably also reinforcing the banks of what was once a defensive ditch.

Incidentally, I have quite a few more photos of Rutupiae and Regulbium, taken at the same time, if anyone wants to see them.

We carried on talking for a while at the breakfast table and when the Hound of the Baskervilles dragged his master off for walkies, I came in here and found plenty of things with which to occupy myself.

Later on, I paired and segued the music for the first of the two radio programmes on which I’d been working. That’s all done now and I’ll find some time to write the notes. I have to keep on going forward, even if I don’t feel like it or if I have too many other things to do.

Seeing as we have been talking about having other things to do … "well, one of us has" – ed … I knocked off work at 16:00 to start to make the week’s bread and then the bases for tonight’s pizza. The home-made bread looks really good, and as chance would have it, I’d just finished assembling the pizzas when the oven pinged to say that the bread had finished. So it was a case of “one out and two straight back in” with no waiting.

When the pizzas came out of the oven, they looked wonderful. And when we tasted them, I do have to say that they were the best that I have ever made – and I’ve made some good ones in the past.

We chatted for a while afterwards, and then I had to come in here to do some work before starting my notes. And all the time, I was being serenaded by a singer with a guitar in the living room. There’s nothing like a bit of live music while you work.

So now that the notes are all finished, I’m going to do the stats and the backing-up, take my medication and sort myself out in the bathroom. I’ll close the window in here too. It’s been open since early this morning, as we’ve had another sweltering day of heat and it was nice to let a little breeze come in.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about marriage bureaux … "well, one of us has" – ed … there was a scene in CARRY ON LOVING that you couldn’t possibly broadcast today, and I used it as an example of a change in humour over time for an essay that I wrote at university.
It was Hattie Jacques interviewing Kenneth Williams in the marriage bureau and she asked him "as a fully grown man, I suppose you are thinking that you would like to have a child?"
"Oh, no" replied Kenneth Williams. "A fully-grown woman, I think."

Friday 15th May 2026 – WE ARE NOT …

… alone!!

Currently asleep on my comfortable sofa in the living room is my friend from Munich, and on the rug by his side is the Hound of the Baskervilles, both of them snoring away quite happily.

Yes, at lunchtime, I received a message – “arriving at about 16:00”. I thought to myself “blimmin’ ‘eck – I’d better get a move on!”.

It made me wish that I’d got a move on last night, really. As usual, after having no tea yet again, I came in here to type up my notes, and as usual, things seemed to take much longer than they ought to have done. However, it was about 21:50 when I finally managed to slide into bed.

During the night, I awoke once or twice, one of which was about 01:00 once more, although this time there was no hailstorm or anything going on that might have woken me. The second time, and I have no idea what time it was, I had to leave the bed to go and walk the parapet. However, quite luckily, I managed to fall asleep both times fairly rapidly.

When the alarm went off at 06:29, we had the usual struggle to my feet, which seemed to take hours, and then I went off to organise myself in the bathroom and then take my medication. The LeClerc order the other day had included some liquorice and mint tea, which, I’m told, will ease my throat somewhat, so I used that to wash down the pills and tablets. We’ll see if it works.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

I was with a couple of friends last night. They were settling down in their new house and we were discussing cars. They had bought a brand new – one of these Chinese electric cars and they were astonished at all of the restrictions on it. It said that they couldn’t sell it in the Dordogne, all kinds of things like that. We supposed that it was due to something with people buying cars on finance and then disappearing. We ended up talking about cars in the auctions, about cars that had been dropped and been banged, etc. and were going at full price. They then mentioned a Ford Escort that had been some old woman’s car. It was a bit scabby and rough around the edges but it was otherwise in very good condition but no-one seemed to be interested in it. The husband then showed me a piece of paper about the insurance on his old FIAT, about all of the declarations that he had to sign when he came to sell it. This dream went on for ages but I can’t remember any more about it, except that this incident in the Dordogne, there was a clause in their insurance that said that although they can’t sell the car in the Dordogne, they could take it to this woman’s office at 16:00 and she would buy it from them.

When I had my taxis, I had both kinds of cars – former reps’ cars with high mileage and little old ladies’ cars with almost nothing on the clock. Surprisingly, the reps’ cars were so much better and worked a lot harder than the other, having been used to a hard life and plenty of work.

But if this Escort were merely scabby around the edges, it should have tidied up quite nicely, so I’m surprised that, even in the dream, no-one seemed to be interested in it.

But back in this dream the time was about 01:15 and it seemed that I had been awake ever since I’d gone to bed. I was walking around on a cold wood floor so in the end, I went to put on my socks. However, it was extremely complicated with them being these compression socks and I had to try three or four times before I was able to put them on.

Every now and again, I have to fit my own socks when I have an early start, and with them being these compression socks, it really is awkward. However, walking around on a cold wood floor in the bedroom feels really nice to me – it’s the cold tiles everywhere else in this apartment that annoys me. That’s the only thing that I don’t like about my apartment. I would really have liked to have had a wooden floor, but you can’t have everything.

One thing about this dream that I forgot was that when they went to insure the car, the girl couldn’t see the car listed in her manual, but when my friend’s wife looked, it was there, as clear as daylight.

It’s no surprise though. If you asked me to name the top five Chinese cars on the market these days, I wouldn’t have a clue.

Isabelle the Nurse turned up as usual, and we talked about the Hound of the Baskervilles as she sorted out my legs and feet. I told her not to fight with my cleaner over him – they can take turns to stroke him.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of Charles Roach Smith’s THE ANTIQUITIES OF RICHBOROUGH, RECULVER, AND LYMNE, IN KENT.

At long last, we’re getting down to the excavations at Reculver. However, not his excavations but excavations that took place earlier in the nineteenth century by other people. One day, soon I hope, we’ll start on his work and see what he found.

Back in here, I finished off the notes for the radio programme that I’d started yesterday, and then I had a huge surprise.

A few years ago … "2017 to be precise" – ed … I hired a boat and went UP LABRADOR’S NORTHERN COAST to what I consider to be the Furdustrandir or “Wonderstrand” … "or Wunderstrand" – ed … the magnificent stretch of white sand that the Norse explorers saw when they touched land after sailing from Greenland.

Also there are the scanty, rotting remains of North River, a settlement that was abandoned during the clearances of the 1950s when everyone from these isolated spots was removed to towns like Cartwright and a few others farther south. North River is famous, or infamous, because of a child’s grave in the cemetery. A Finnish anthropologist called Viano Tanner explored these settlements in 1937-39 and noted the grave of a child “killed by dogs”. Everyone disputed that this gravestone exists and claimed that no such event ever happened, so I wanted to see for myself. And it is there!

But while I was there, I photographed a few other gravestones.

Someone wrote to me in astonishment, saying that one of the graves was that of her grandfather, and what did I know about him. So I spent all morning researching all of the papers that I have on Labrador, and in the end, I sent her what I could find, which actually was quite a lot.

At that point, I decided that I’d better go and make bread, but my cleaner arrived to do her stuff, so I had to settle for a disgusting drink and my midday (hours late) medication.

Once she’d left, I began the process of making bread rolls and a loaf, but my friend and the Hound of the Baskervilles turned up while I had my hands full of dough.

It’s lovely to see him again. We first met on our first day at grammar school back in September 1965 and, like me, he’s a big music fan. When I was able to do so, I went down to Munich on many occasions to visit him, but these days, people have to come to see me here, and it’s nice when they do.

While I was making bread, we talked about old times and people whom we knew at school who are now pushing up the daisies somewhere, and once the bread was left to rise, I blanched some broccoli and made a broccoli stalk soup with pasta for tea.

To my surprise, I found myself eating some soup and bread – the first evening meal that I’ve had for months. However, my eyes were bigger than my stomach and I ended up being a miserable failure towards the end.

By the time that we’d finished and I’d washed up everything … "where did this energy come from?" – ed … it was after 23:00 so we decided that it was bedtime. And when was the last time that I was up and about at this time of night? Obviously, having people here is doing me good.

Anyway, I sorted myself out in the bathroom and then came in here to sleep. Crawling into my nice comfortable bed is really wonderful at any time. I threw the quilt over my head and that was that.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about snoring … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the time when I was driving for Shearings on a coach tour somewhere and one of the passengers, a youngish female, asked me "if I fall asleep and begin to snore, will you wake me up?"
"Certainly" I replied. "Shall I shake you, or give you a nudge?"

Sunday 10th May 2026 – WHAT A CHAOTIC …

… night that was! I’m still not sure of quite what happened, but I’ll try to piece it all together as I continue, and we’ll see what we can find.

Last night, having made something of an effort, I finished my notes and had them online by about 21:00. With everything else that I needed to do, it was not far short of 21:45 when I climbed into bed. It was rather later than I had hoped, but a nice lie-in was forecast for tomorrow.

So, well tucked in, deep beneath the quilt, I tried to fall asleep. And tried, and tried, and tried.

Instead of going to sleep, I just lay there, having what they call over here a nuit blanche, watching the clock go round and round and sifting through all kinds of various thoughts and memories of a misspent youth and dozens after dozens of opportunities missed.

At one point, I had to leave the bed to go to stroll the parapet. When I came back, I checked the time – 05:10 – so I surprised myself, and probably you too, by spending an hour or so dictating some radio notes from the outstanding pile.

In fact, I would have done much more, but as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … one of these new medicaments is giving me a very dry throat and after about an hour, I was croaking like a frog.

Back in bed, I actually managed to fall asleep, but not for long. I kept on waking up, wondering when the nurse would arrive. And when he finally did put in an appearance, I was fast asleep.

He didn’t stay long, but after he left, I was wide awake and couldn’t go back to sleep. Eventually, I hauled myself out of bed and went into the bathroom.

When I finally made it into the kitchen, it was just 09:33 and that will suit me fine for a Sunday. I made my porridge and strong coffee, warmed up two of my homemade croissants, which I had today with apricot jam, and read some more of REPORT ON EXCAVATIONS MADE UPON THE SITE OF THE ROMAN CASTRUM AT PEVENSEY by Charles Roach Smith.

His excavations are being hampered by many missing pieces, which he puts down to looting by the local population. He tells us that "when the Government of our country has no regard for its ancient monuments and will not protect them, the ignorant despoilers who pull down Roman walls and plough up Roman camps can no more be blamed than the covetous jobbers who conspire to destroy old buildings and churches to make new ones."

If you didn’t know that this was written 170 years ago, you would swear that he’s talking about HS2, where ancient cemeteries, listed buildings, thirteenth-century churches and prehistoric remains are being destroyed day by day for a failed vanity project that will reduce the time of travel from London to Birmingham by just ten minutes, ten minutes that will then be lost by walking to another mainline station to catch a connection onwards.

He’s also right about his assumption of the Iter Britanniarum. Thomas Wright, our previous author, used the absence of places such as Pevensey in the Iter to justify his faith in the (forged) works of Richard of Chichester. Roach Smith tells us, correctly as it subsequently turns out, "that most of these castra were not constructed until subsequent to the compilation of the Itinerary of Antonius … were clearly brought into the line with what became in later times the ‘Littus Saxonicum’ … there is every reason to infer that they were not at that time in being."

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone and, to my surprise, there was something on there, so I must have gone to sleep at some point.

I was discussing changes to the JD Cymru League again. One of the things that I suggested in respect of the playoffs was to abandon these abysmal penalty shootouts if the scores are equal after ninety minutes and the teams just play on and on and on until someone scores a goal.

These penalty shootouts really are abysmal and if I had the chance to be in charge, I would want teams to play on until someone scores. However, I would go farther and say that any player who had received a booking would be excluded from any time after ninety minutes;

A game between Stoke City and Uruguay would be interesting. Come extra time, there would be no-one on the field to play.

We were then at the JD Cymru League playoffs, at the final. There was one team that was having to have some kind of extreme treatment so that they could carry on playing in the final. I was there with this kind-of trophy. It was like two cermaic segments of a circle or something, bits of a bowl. They were arranged in a sort of cruciform pattern. I had to carry it out to the touchline, something that I was not happy to do because if I were to drop it, I was certain that it would break.

And couldn’t you just imagine me carrying a huge ceramic trophy onto a football field? How far towards the centre circle do you think that I would reach?

Back in here, we had a footfest. One Scottish play-off match after another. I think that there was only two that I missed. There were even some English ones too.

After a nice relax when I didn’t do much, I turned my attention to the radio programme that I started yesterday. All of the music has now been chosen, not without difficulty. It’s all reformatted, re-edited, remixed, paired and segued, and all that remains to do is to write the notes, which I shall start on Tuesday afternoon after my shower. Some of the notes are written already.

At 16:30, I knocked off to make the bread for next week and, even as we speak, it’s busy baking in the oven. When it’s finished, I’ll take it out to cool and then I’ll be getting ready for bed, early as it might be.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my voice croaking … "well, one of us has" – ed … a little boy went up to his grandma and said "granny, granny! Please make a noise like a frog!"
"Why, dear?"
"Because daddy said when you croak, we’ll get all your money!"

Sunday 3rd May 2026 – WHAT A DAY …

… this has been today. But not for any positive reason – in fact, quite the reverse.

And yet last night, things were looking rather better. Although I seemed to have taken a positive age in finishing off everything, it couldn’t have been before 22:30 when I finally crawled into bed. Not to worry, though, because with it being a Sunday, if things go according to plan … "some hope" – ed … I don’t have to move until about 08:30 when Isabelle the Nurse arrives.

So once under the quilt, and when the wracking fits of coughing stopped, I tried to go to sleep, but as usual, it took longer, much longer, than it ought.

And that was all that I remember until I awoke, for the usual reason. At that point, I checked the clock and it was just after 06:00. I’d slept for about seven and a half hours.

Back in here, I climbed back into bed and I was dead to the World when Isabelle the Nurse arrived. She sorted out my legs and feet and then she cleared off, and I went back to sleep. Once more, it was a really, really deep sleep.

It was another one of those dramatic sitting-bolt-upright awakenings, something that I haven’t had for quite a while. It took me a while … "as usual" – ed … to summon up the energy to go into the bathroom to sort myself out, and then on arrival in the kitchen, it was 10:30. That’s a nice time to start the day.

But going back to the night, at some point, and I’ve no idea when, I had one of those coughing fits that was so intense that I ended up being violently sick again. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I can’t stand much more of this.

The first thing that I did was to switch on the oven to let it warm up. Next was to brush with milk the croissants that I’d made yesterday and, when the oven was hot enough, put them in for fifteen minutes.

While they were baking, I made my porridge and strong, black coffee.

Breakfast was really nice this morning, and the croissants were excellent. And while I was eating, I was reading some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

Today, we are discussing the Saxon system of civic organisation. He quite rightly says that very little is known of this, and so we have made a quantum leap into the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries where there are plenty of charters and decrees extant that give us some idea of how things ended up before the arrival of the Normans.

However, this is probably a rather biased way to look at things because half of the country was held by the Norse and much of the rest was under Alfred the Great, so it’s hardly a fair and representative capture of the true situation.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

I was responsible for the publication of two books written by famous people when they were children. There was an older lady of that age, the acrobatic age, and she was rather injured at that particular time, so they went through the muddle with her … fell asleep here … and the particular problem with this. Anyway, the first one there was rather disabled so there wasn’t much in there that needed to be edited or corrected. But the second girl was a much more lively person. There was a story that she’d been to a zoo in Chester and then gone on to meet Jimmy Saville … fell asleep here … so from there, she had received some very healthy advertising revenue and popularity, and then … fell asleep here …

Whatever time this was dictated, I must have been really tired. I do, however, admire how I kept on going after the first two fallings asleep and only threw the towel in at the third hurdle. That’s some perseverance. But it’s another dream that means nothing at all to me, although imagine meeting Jimmy Saville.

There were other things to do, and then I had a little footfest.

The first game was Morton v Airdrie United. Both clubs were fighting to escape the relegation playoffs, with Morton needing to avoid defeat – something that was not looking very likely after their dreadful performance last week.

And when Airdrie took the lead, we were all thinking “here we go again!”.But late in the game, Morton managed to equalise, and, even more surprisingly, managed to hang on until the final whistle. So Airdrie must face the winner of the promotion playoffs of the league below.

The next game was Elgin City v Stranraer. There was nothing really for which these two teams were playing so Stranraer’s manager gave an outing to a huge batch of fringe players.

On the bench was Robbie Foster, and how nice it was to see him back after over ten months out with a serious injury. And the script couldn’t have been written any better. He eventually made it onto the pitch and, believe it or not, scored the only goal of the game. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a football player try so hard with such little reward as him in the past.

After that, fatigue caught up with me and I was unable to respond for a good couple of hours. Eventually, I staggered into the kitchen and made the next loaf of bread, but it really was a struggle. The loaf, however, is excellent.

No pizza for tea. Instead, I had a taco roll with salad. Much as I didn’t want to, it will help keep the lupus from the porte, as they would have said in Ancient Rome.

So now, after finishing my notes, there are one or two things to do and then I’m off to bed, ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed … What a waste of a day this was.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about being sick … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of the sign in the parish church at Neston on the Wirral when we all went there for Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve fifty-odd years ago.
"Will patrons please note that the box marked ‘for the sick’ is restricted to monetary contributions only."

Sunday 19th April 2026 – WHAT A NICE …

… way to start the day. When I opened the shutters in here and sat down at my desk to start work, it was already … errr … 12:20. Who could ask for a Sunday morning any better than that? As was said once a long time ago in a “Gunsmoke” episode, "Sunday is the one day of the week a man can get up at noon and sit around with his boots off without anybody hollering at him about it."

Mind you, for reasons that I still don’t understand, Saturday was a rather late night and I didn’t finish everything and slide under the bedclothes until 22:30. The football can’t have taken all that long, surely?

But Sunday is a lie-in so I was planning to sleep until Isabelle the Nurse came to sort out my legs at about 08:30 as usual.

At least, that was the plan, and, as we all know, "The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft agley an’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain for promis’d joy." At some point during the night, I awoke for what seemed to be the usual reason and went off to stroll the parapet. I’ve no idea what time it was, and neither did I care.

Back in bed, I went to sleep again fairly quickly and although I awoke at some point when it was light outside, I shoved my head back down under the quilt and went back to bed.

Isabelle the Nurse awoke me, ringing the doorbell to announce her presence. She sorted out my legs and feet, chatting away about the brocante in the town while I was cowering under the quilt. After she left, I went back to sleep almost straight away.

When I checked the time, sitting on the edge of the bed ready to stand up, it was 10:33, so all in all, it was a very good sleep and a very relaxing morning.

In the kitchen, I just had some of my medication and then made breakfast – porridge, coffee and two of my home-made croissants – and the croissants were, as usual, delicious after ninety seconds at 180°C in the microwave.

While I was eating, I was reading some more of THE CELT, THE ROMAN and THE SAXON by Thomas Wright.

We’re discussing agriculture today, and he tells us that "Mr. Bruce observed … traces of cultivation on the waste lands in Northumberland, and he is probably right in attributing them to the Romans. ‘A little to the south of Borcovicus,’ he says, ‘and stretching westward, the ground has been thrown up in long terraced lines, a mode of cultivation much practised in Italy and the East. Similar terraces, more feebly developed, appear at Bradley. I have seen them very distinctly marked on the banks of the Rede-water, at old Carlisle, and in other places."

These terraces are called “lynchets” and date all the way from the Iron Age and maybe before, to the early medieval period

By now, it was 12:15 after my lazy start to the day, so I headed back in here and switched on the computer after first, of course, opening the shutters.

The first thing that I did was to transcribe the dictaphone notes to find out where I’d been during the night.

I’d come across a brochure about coach tours so I was looking through it. There were lots of coach tours going all around the UK, but it was a shame that every one just picked up in London rather than anywhere else. There were adverts in there for British Rail which said “we aren’t only this and we aren’t only this and we aren’t only this” and someone suggested that they aren’t only anything, in fact. There was someone who had to return to the USA and someone was giving her some kind of instructions about where to go to catch the bus to take her back to her home town. There was a guy there with an elderly woman who was probably his mother, and they were in the queue for having a burger so he asked his mother if she wanted rye. The mother didn’t understand at all what he was walking about and tried to have him explain, but he wasn’t being very patient with her. Then it was my turn to order so I asked for a veggie burger. They asked me what else I wanted on it but the dream faded out there.

As if I’m ever likely to go on a coach trip anywhere as a passenger – except those few times to football matches. Mind you, I did go on a few with Nerina in the past.

The rye bread relates to some bread that Jackie left with me when she left. It’s been ages since I’ve had some good German bread, so I really enjoyed it, thanks, and I’ve been thinking of ordering some more at some point.

One thing though, and that is that I have no idea why British Rail would be allowed to advertise in a coach company’s brochure.

There was also something about being in Virlet. I was down there and I was looking at the barn. There were all kinds of things growing out of the slates on the barn but right at the peak of the roof where the wind turbine is, there was a tree growing out of it so I tried to find a ladder. I eventually found a ladder and I was trying to stand it up but it fell over. I picked it up but it was the wrong way round, upside-down. I needed to clean some electrical contacts so I was looking for something to clean the contacts but I couldn’t find anything. There was probably something in the barn, but I wanted to put this ladder up so that I could climb up onto the roof and pull this tree out. However, I was in my work clothes, so I was really tidy, with tidy shoes, and I was afraid of dirtying them, but I couldn’t think of how I could change into anything or whether I had anything with me.

It’s not like me to bother about making good clothes dirty – I’ve ruined enough of those in the past. And I never really was much good at manoeuvring ladders around, particularly the old, heavy wooden ones. But anyway, there won’t be plants growing in between the slates on the roof because there aren’t any. It’s a sheet roof pressed to resemble slates.

After that, we had a footfest. Firstly, we had the highlights of the rest of the matches in the JD Cymru League. There was nothing of any excitement there today, except a few heart-stopping moments as a couple of clubs tried the “let’s play it out from the back, guys” routine, but unfortunately, it came to nothing as the teams recovered and cleared their lines.

Secondly, we had Greenock Morton at home to Queens Park. And what a match that was. Morton could have had a dozen goals before half-time and another dozen in the second half, but a well-known phrase involving the hindquarters of a ruminant animal and a stringed musical instrument comes to mind. They were so dominant, especially after a Queens Park player had been sent off, that I was expecting an extremely tragic ending for Morton in the last couple of minutes, but both teams left the field with a 0-0 draw, accompanied by the boos and jeers of both sets of supporters.

Finally, we had Stranraer at home to their bogey team, Forfar Athletic, and as you might expect, the Loons went back to Angus with the three points and a 0-1 victory.

After all of that, I vegetated for a while and then did some more of the long project that I mentioned several weeks ago. And now, it’s slowly beginning to take shape, but there’s a long way to go.

There was a pause as well during the afternoon when I went to make a loaf of bread. That’s now cooked and cooling down in the kitchen, and I’m going to be off to bed in a minute or two, without any tea again.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about lying in bed … "well, one of us has" – ed … Nerina and I went camping once, and I awoke in the middle of the night. The view was so magnificent that I awoke and pointed upwards.
"Look at all of that!" I exclaimed. "I don’t think that I’ve ever seen so many stars before in my life! And there’s a shooting star over there if you look that way!"
"Do you know what that means?" she asked.
"Not at all" I replied.
"It means that some swine has stolen our tent, you berk!"

Sunday 5th April 2026 – YET ANOTHER NIGHT …

… when I’m going to bed without any tea, except, of course, a slice of my home-made chocolate cake and a helping of home-made ice cream

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I’m valuing my sleep much more than I’m valuing my food right now, and that’s not like me at all, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

You wouldn’t think that I’d had a decent lie-in last night. As usual, things rather dragged and it ended up being just after 22:00 when I went to bed. Never mind though, at least I could have a decent sleep.

That’s what I thought, anyway, but as you might expect, it didn’t work out like that. I awoke on a couple of occasions and once, round about 05:30, I thought that I would never go to go back to sleep.

However, I must have done at some point because, when the doorbell rang, I was so far out of it that I thought “who the heck is this waking me up at this time?” and I was half out of bed before I realised that it was Isabelle the Nurse. I had to dive quickly back under the covers and pretend to be asleep for when she came in here.

She was her usual chatty self, which is something that I don’t really need, early on a Sunday morning. But after she left, I could turn over and go back to sleep.

Eventually, I awoke and once I’d managed to stand up, which was not easy, I headed off into the bathroom to sort myself out. It was a respectable 09:40 when I arrived in the kitchen. No medication this morning except the urgent stuff. I simply made breakfast, including more of my delicious hot cross buns.

We started a new book today too. It’s HISTORIA BRITTONUM, written by Nennius in the tenth century. It’s a book with probably the most obsequious introduction that I have ever read, and it’s also one of the most inaccurate, although it’s one of the first to mention Arthur, even if it doesn’t describe him as a king.

The translation dates from 1838 and it contains one of the most glorious mistranslations that I have ever seen. How it passed the proof-readers, I really don’t know. Our translator tells us that "St. Germanus, after his death, returned into his own country". That would have been interesting to witness.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

When I awoke, round about 00:44, I was busy working on planning a radio programme about some kind of index. It was importing likely songs into it but at the moment that I awoke, I was puzzling over what name to give to the file. That was the point that I reached when I awoke.

Usually, I can think of a really good name for my files, but most often, it’s about ten minutes after I’ve already named them and backed them up. But this actually relates to a discussion I was having on Friday with one of my regular readers, who was talking about my database. Actually, I keep an index in a series of text files and in an Open Office spreadsheet under the rather prosaic name of “Playlist”.

There was also some more about something from the other night. They had managed to identify the cowling of that ice cream lorry and had prepared one in plastic and sent it to him to fit himself. In the meantime, they were still making enquiries about that project that was discussed the other day but they hadn’t as yet made very much progress.

Now, I wonder to which dream this relates. I can see the cowling now – it’s off a Leyland FG-550 and it’s green – but this dream and the one to which it refers still don’t ring any bells with me now that I’m awake.

I was down in Virlet last night with Nerina. We were sorting out a few things down there with someone else. Then this other person left and we decided to leave too. Nerina climbed into her car, which was a blue Ford Classic … "it was actually a Ford Corsair" – ed …, and I locked up the house. As I approached Nerina’s car, she let out the clutch and moved off about fifty yards, so I walked along towards the car, and she did this on several occasions. I thought “what on earth is the matter with her?”. So we carried on like this, but then the next-door neighbour arrived in a kind of horse box. Just as I was about to go out of sight round a corner, a little boy shouted after me “mister, mister”. I turned round and he said that their house was on fire, so I immediately ran down there and asked them if they had a hose, which they hadn’t, so I went into the barn. They followed me in, and they were amazed by the three cars that were in there that dated to the 1930s and early 1940s. I was rummaging around looking for the hose, and I found it and plugged it into the tap, but it was very short. I thought that I had much more hose than this, so I had a search around and I found another length. It still wasn’t very long so I began to look around outside. Nerina was there by this time, and she pointed out a hose that was lying on the ground underneath some wood. I went to fetch it, but it was the wrong connection. In the meantime, no fire brigade had turned up, no ambulance, no police or anything, so I asked them if they had ‘phoned the fire brigade. They replied “you have a decent-looking pushbike there. Why don’t you ride into the village and tell the mayor?”. Although the pushbike might be decent, which it probably wasn’t, I was in no healthy state to get on a bike and cycle up and down a few mountains, so I carried on looking for this hose.

This wasn’t the Virlet that I know. In fact, I’ve no idea where it might be. And I can imagine Nerina driving off as I approached the car. In fact, I did that one with Laurence but she didn’t notice and climbed into the car that had pulled up behind.

The garage with the old cars is the same one that appeared in a dream several weeks ago, but down in the Auvergne, there would be no problem about hosepipes as I have miles of the stuff.

When I’d finished, there was a footfest. Firstly, Stranraer fighting to a 1-1 draw with Dumbarton, followed by Greenock Morton throwing away a one-goal lead to go down 3-1 away to Dunfermline Athletic.

After that, I attacked the radio notes for the next programme. And by the time that I’d finished, I’d prepared and assembled the two halves of the programme, chosen the joining track and written the notes for it.

That’s three radio programmes that I’ve assembled this weekend. That’s some good going, and I wish that I could do it every weekend.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall exactly what happened after this. And for over an hour too. And when I finally did return to the Land of the Living, I couldn’t move for a good fifteen minutes. As I said earlier, it’s hard to believe that I had a lie-in this morning.

In the kitchen, I made a loaf of bread. Not a pizza, because as I said a little earlier, I’m valuing my sleep more than I’m valuing my food right now. And the loaf is cooked to perfection. I hope that it will taste as nice as it looks.

While it was baking, I washed up everything and then had my chocolate cake with home-made ice cream. The pudding was delicious as usual.

So right now, I’m going to sort myself out and go to bed. And as well as that, seeing as it’s a Bank Holiday tomorrow, I’m going to set the alarm to 07:30 and have an extra hour in bed.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about house fires … "well, one of us has" – ed … there were two men sitting on a pier in the Bahamas quietly fishing.
Neither of them actually looked like the flashy type so the first one asked the second "How come you managed to come here?"
"I had a house fire and I lost absolutely everything" he replied. "But the insurance company was very generous and paid me for everything."
"It’s pretty much the same story for me" replied the first man "except that it was a flood that wiped me out."
"Blimmin’ ‘eck!" said the second man. "However did you manage to start a flood?"

Wednesday 1st April 2026 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone this morning when I awoke.

Not that that was any surprise. Leaving aside the question of these new medicaments that Emilie the Cute Consultant prescribed for me, if you don’t go to bed until 23:30 and you awaken at 04:00, there’s not a lot of time to go anywhere, is there?

Yes, it was another late night last night. For some reason or other, tea last night took ages to cook and consequently, I was quite late finishing. And then with the writing of the notes and everything else that I have to do, we ended up finishing much later than I had hoped.

Once in my nice, clean bed, I was hoping for a really good sleep. And for the first part of the night, that was what I had. Asleep quite quickly and not moving a muscle at all. However, it all went wrong at 04:00 when I awoke.

For quite a while, I stayed with my head tucked firmly under the quilt, nice and comfortable, but after about an hour, I began to think of all of the things that I could be doing instead.

Consequently, I managed … "eventually" – ed … to crawl out of bed and take my place at the computer.

And by the time that the alarm went off, I had dictated no fewer than five sets of radio notes. That was a good morning’s work, especially as there are only now a handful left to do.

When I’d finished, I crawled into the bathroom to sort myself out and then went into the kitchen for the hot drink and medication.

Back in here, I checked the dictaphone and then occupied myself with a few tasks to keep me busy.

Isabelle the Nurse arrived as usual and sorted out my legs and feet. She didn’t have much to say for herself today, which is not like her. After she left, I could make breakfast and make a start on the new book.

It’s called THE ROMAN FORT AT BALMUILDY on the Antonine Wall, written by Stewart Napier Miller and concerns the excavations in 1912-1914 of a Roman fort on the Antonine Wall that ran between the Forth and the Clyde in Scotland.

Its ruins were always visible up to about 1820 or so when it was quarried for its stone. With its existence being threatened by the expansion of Glasgow, it was decided in 1912 to excavate it to recover what might be lost. The excavations finished in 1914 when Miller was mobilised into the Army at the start of World War I.

Back in here afterwards, I sat down at my desk, and the next thing that I remembered, it was 11:27. I’d fallen asleep yet again and had been out like a light for a little over two hours. That was a huge disappointment because I had so much to do today, and I thought that, by and large, I’d overcome these rather dramatic crash-outs.

Then again, I suppose that with only four and a half hours sleep during the night, I’d have to catch up on it somehow, some time. So with not having much time to hang around, I immediately attacked the radio programme that I’d been preparing.

There was a deadline for this today – 16:00 for reasons that you will soon find out. And despite a pause for a disgusting drink, by 16:00, I’d chosen all of the music, remixed and re-edited it all, paired and segued it, end even written all of the notes for it. That was probably the quickest radio programme that I’ve ever prepared, and I wish that I could do them all as quickly as this.

At 16:00 I went into the kitchen.

The first task was to make some bread baps – four of them. Two of them were destined for this evening and the other two for tomorrow evening.

While they were proofing after their first knead, I melted a bar of cooking chocolate over an ad-hoc bain marie with a little water. When it had all melted, I put it on one side to cool, and then, when it was cool enough, poured it over the top of my chocolate cake to make a kind of chocolate shell.

That’s going to be my Easter treat and I bet that it will be as sickly as anything. And won’t I enjoy it?

In the meantime, I’d been preparing my butternut squash, scooping out the seeds and filling the holes with garlic and chili. Then drizzling some olive oil over the two halves. The two halves went into the oven to roast, along with an onion and some potatoes.

At some point during all of that, I’d kneaded the dough for the bread rolls and separated it into four equal portions that I then shaped in the form of discuses, which I left to prove again.

When the squash, potatoes and onions were ready, I took them out of the oven and put in the bread rolls. With the squash, potatoes and onions etc, I made a soup using the carrot water that I’d saved from blanching my carrots that I’d ordered from Leclerc.

Once the soup was ready, I whizzed it up, added some plain soya yoghurt and a few handfuls of these little pasta elbows and let it simmer for ten minutes. Half of it then went into my bowl and the other half was put on one side with two of the baps, for tea tomorrow.

And it was absolutely delicious, one of the best soups that I have ever made. And there wasn’t any room for any trifle afterwards either. The soup and bread were quite enough.

And now I’m off to bed. I’ve had a hellish day today. Never mind the crashing out, I’ve been coughing all day, sneezing and I have a streaming head cold, so strong that not even any Vick’s or Olbas Oil can control it. I hope that it all clears up quite quickly because it all gets right on my nerves all of this. As if I don’t have enough problems.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about waking up early … "well, one of us has" – ed … when I was back in Crewe, I used to wake up early quite often, even after only an hour or two of sleep.
One of my friends once asked me "whenever that kind of thing ever happened, did you wake up grumpy? "
"Oh no" I replied. "I always let her sleep in."

Sunday 8th March 2026 – THAT WAS …

… much more like a game of football today. And I hope that those of you who watched it via the link that I posted yesterday (the link is still active if you want to watch it later) enjoyed it just as much as I did.

So last night, I went to bed, looking forward to today’s game of football. And as usual, I was later going to bed than intended. It was actually 23:40 when I finally crawled into bed after finishing everything that needed finishing.

As usual, I seemed to go to sleep quite quickly, and when I awoke (without the benefit of an alarm) it was just becoming light outside. I made no effort whatever to find out what time it was, because whatever time it was, I had no intention of leaving the bed. Sunday is a Day of Rest and these days, it begins with a lie-in.

When Isabelle the Nurse put in her appearance, I was fast asleep in bed, and quite rightly so. She massaged my legs and feet with the oil etc while I was lying there immobile, and then she wandered off on her rounds. I went straight back to sleep.

When I finally awoke, it was 10:10 – what a wonderful way to start the day, and I wish that I could do it more often. I went into the kitchen, made my breakfast, forgot my medication and read some more of ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A Miller.

He’s now winding up the affairs of the Frankish nobles, recounting how, even in danger of annihilation by the Ottomans, they refuse to form a united front to defend their territory. They seem to be content with plotting, counter-plotting, invoking the aid of different factions such as the Genoese, the Neapolitans, the Venetians and even the Ottomans themselves to aid them in their selfish ambitions, not realising that the only winners in this scenario will be those who are giving the aid and, ultimately, the Ottomans.

But breakfast was nice, though. Porridge, hot black coffee and the last of the home-made croissants. I’ll have to make some more on Saturday. And while I’m at it, there’s only enough birthday cake to last until Friday evening. I’ll have to make some more dessert on Saturday too. Anyone have any ideas? Some kind of trifle sounds nice, but I don’t have any vegan jelly. Would agar-agar do the job, do you think? And I could top it with the vegan cream mix that I used for my birthday cake.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what I’d been up to during the night.

There were some photographs of some certain people going around that were dated back to the Roman period. Then, they came across a few more. One of them was interesting because it showed some Roman or other with an apple or something on his head as if it were a precursor to a story about William Tell. This became quite a well-known photo. Then they came across a few more which showed a couple of small girls, maybe eight years old or something, and they had that particular guy, who was asleep, and they were busy balancing these apples on top of his head. So they began to realise that the photo with the apple was not exactly a fake but was an involuntary one while this guy was actually asleep.

That would be quite something – photographs dating back to Roman times. Although the technique of using light to create images has been known since at least the fourth century BC, no one succeeded in capturing an image until 1777, and then they didn’t take the idea any further.

The allusion to William Tell is bizarre, though.

There had been some kind of archaeology carried out on a site. They had come across a woman, or a skeleton of a woman, who had been subjected to all kinds of atrocities and so on. A couple of years later, working in a similar place, they came across the same skeleton but much more modern, one that had also been subjected to a lot of atrocities. So we were busy trying to investigate it, so we had a small team. But there wasn’t much to do for entertainment there in the evening so one of the guys and I were talking about boxing. We agreed to have a three-round boxing match between us. This took place in the roadway up near the roundabout near the sports centre in Granville. We put the gloves on etc. and went to compete. It was obvious that this guy was in quite a different class to me and I was floundering around somewhat but he never actually laid a glove on me because my defence was quite good, but I couldn’t attack. At the end of a few rounds, he was rather dismissive about the affair and made one or two rather offensive comments, but I told him that I wasn’t in the least offended because we had to do something to pass the time, but I don’t think that he was all that entusiastic. He didn’t really appreciate anything, but I suppose that he could quite easily have had me on the floor in the first ten seconds if he had really tried. I forgot to mention in this boxing dream that the discussion about it came because we were discussing what to do to pass the time and the question of boxing came up. I said that I had brought it up before, but they hadn’t seemed to be very interested, much as I would have liked to have been involved in it.

If we go back to Mortimer Wheeler and MAIDEN CASTLE, there’s a report in there about a skeleton that they found which seemed to have been hacked about and cruelly treated round about the time of death.

As for boxing, I would have enjoyed maybe having a go once or twice, but I wouldn’t have been any good at it.

I’d had to go somewhere for some reason and I’d borrowed someone’s old pedal moped. I’d travelled all the way to wherever it was that I’d had to go and went to do what I had to do. Coming out of it, I bumped into the owner of the moped, a huge, big guy, so we went to go back home. He said that he hoped that the moped had been OK. I hoped that it was and went to look for it. But I’d left the keys in it and the ignition turned on, but it started up. He climbed on the front to ride and I sat on the pillion and we set off. Later on, I was driving, and he was talking about changing into his shorts, so I said that it’s probably not a good idea and tried to discourage him. We carried on riding and came to a town centre where there were roadworks. There was a diversion posted, but we reached a point where there was no diversion so I went straight on, but realised that this wasn’t the road. It was an old residential area full of terraced houses, some of which had been demolished. He was talking about a row of terraced houses somewhere that hadn’t been demolished because the Beatles had bought it after they had gone the wrong way down what had been supposed to have been a diversion and seen these houses standing on their own. Eventually, I tried to return to where the main road would be. This involved driving across a piece of wasteland. But there was a big fence at the end of it and a workers’ canteen. When the workers in the canteen saw me coming, they dismantled the canteen so that I could drive this car through and back onto the road. They asked if I would be OK from here. I said that I would have been OK had I seen the diversion sign. They replied that they had taken the diversion sign away thirty seconds ago because the diversion had finished. The guy on the back of this moped was now talking again about changing into his shorts even though he said that I had stopped him. But I hadn’t stopped him – I’d just tried to discourage him

This is a strange dream, right enough, hopping about from moped to car and to moped again. And, incidentally, there wasn’t a pillion seat on such things as an old NSU Quickly, a Phillips Panda or a Raleigh Runabout.

However, the demolition site seems to be a flashback to that dream about a disappeared sports stadium a couple of months ago, and while the Beatles never owned a stock of houses (as far as I know), I do know of one group that did, a most surprising group as well, given their ethos. However, professional secrecy impels me to keep that news to myself.

Having brought everything up-to-date, I watched the highlights of Stranraer’s game against Edinburgh City, bottom of the table. And I wished that I hadn’t because Stranraer were awful and suffered their worst defeat of the season, which is pretty hard to bear after some of their recent positive results.

Next on the list was the Welsh homework, which I almost finished before the football came on.

And while the result was predictable, given the gulf in class between a team in the Premier League and another one in the second tier, Y Rhyl gave Caernarfon a good run for their money and pushed them all the way. The game finished 2-1 to Caernarfon, and it could have been ohh! so different if the referee had awarded the penalty that I would have awarded to Y Rhyl in about the fortieth minute when the Cofis’ ‘keeper, Connor Roberts, hauled Y Rhyl’s Somali international Mohamud Ali to the ground.

But what has annoyed me about all of this is that I didn’t notice a single representative of the FAW at any of the games this weekend. It’s a well-known fact that the FAW is a very Cardiff-centric organisation and rarely wanders outside its home territory, but not being present at a Welsh Cup semi-final is appalling.

In a fit of pique, I wrote to the FAW to ask "Where was Noel Mooney" the CEO of the FAW "this weekend? I didn’t notice him at either of the semi-finals this weekend. Did he slip by unnoticed and unannounced, or did he simply not turn up? What was the matter with him? Was he ill? Or could he simply not find enough native bearers to carry the FAW drinks cabinet north of the Heads of the Valleys and fight off the sheep and druids who are all that occupy that forbidden and unknown (to the FAW) territory?"

As well as that, I added a few bells and whistles, but I don’t expect that I shall receive a reply.

Once the game was over, I went to make my bread and pizza. And I have never had a loaf of bread rise up as much as this one did today. It looks wonderful. The pizza was good too, and there is, as usual, half left over for tomorrow.

But right now, I’m off to bed ready for dialysis … "I don’t think" – ed … tomorrow

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about photography … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends is a professional photographer.
One day, he was walking along a beach when two girls from Crewe came walking by the other way.
As he reached for his camera to take a picture of them, one girl said to the other "keep still! He’s going to focus!"
And the other girl replied "What? Both of us?"

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality

Tag Archives: home made bread

Tuesday 11th August 2026 – FOR A LITTLE …

Sunday 9th August 2026 – THAT WAS WHAT …

Wednesday 5th August 2026 – IT HASN’T BEEN …

Sunday 26th July 2026 – TODAY, I HAVE HAD …

Sunday 19th July 2026 – WHEN I AWOKE …

Sunday 12th July 2026 – SUNDAY IS A …

Sunday 5th July 2026 – WHEN I AWOKE …

Sunday 24th May 2026 – AS I HAVE …

Friday 15th May 2026 – WE ARE NOT …

Sunday 10th May 2026 – WHAT A CHAOTIC …

Sunday 3rd May 2026 – WHAT A DAY …

Sunday 19th April 2026 – WHAT A NICE …

Sunday 5th April 2026 – YET ANOTHER NIGHT …

Wednesday 1st April 2026 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

Sunday 8th March 2026 – THAT WAS …

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